Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Vikings, from our perspective, have nobody to blame but themselves for the disaster of 2010. We told everybody, including the Vikings and their fans before the 2009 season, not to get consumed by Old Yeller Fever.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The quarterback needs to adjust his style of play to match the circumstances. I used to blame Arians for poor play calling but it was fine when Rothlisberger was out. We won games. The running game worked. But now its back to all about Ben. Stand in the pocket for an eternity with a patchwork offensive line. Constantly looking for a highlight reel play dowin the field instead of first downs. Brady gave a clinic on how to lead a young, inexperienced team to a win. Another example of why he is an elite quarterback and Rothlisberger is not. Watch the film Ben, even you might learn something.

Roethlisberger has had a lot of great games in his career. but he has turned in a surprising number of bad games. As the commenter noted, he seems to lack situational awareness. He goes for big plays when cold efficiency is the better choice. Against New England, the offense sputtered when the game was close. BR seemed unable or unwilling to take what the defense gave him and threw a slew of deep incompletions.

It was even worse against the Bengals. The Steelers had a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter. The only way Cinncinnati can make a comeback is if Pittsburgh gave them a turnover and a short-field. Roethlisberger promptly threw an unnecessary interception and the Bengals stormed back into the game. (In fairness, the head coach helped the Bengals out by trying for a long-field goal with a struggling kicker.)

I have to say that the Steelers were also out-coached. The team was missing quality starters on both sides of the ball. Yet, i saw very little creativity in the play selection or formations. The coaches just seemed content to use their basic game plan and hope that the substitutes could play as well as the starters they replaced.

For nearly a century of solid profitability, Merrill Lynch was the company that brought Wall Street to Main Street, turning tens of millions of Americans into investors. But by the early 2000s, under C.E.O. Stanley O'Neal, it had developed a raging case of Goldman Sachs envy and began a blind stampede into unprecedented risk. In an excerpt from their new book, Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera chart the evisceration of the “Mother Merrill” culture as the firm crashed head-on with the mortgage meltdown.

The movie conforms to a pure and simple Hollywood story line complete with hero (Wilson), villain (Libby), and innocent, distressed damsel (Plame). That story line is gospel for the Left. A corollary story line is gospel for the Right: that Libby took the fall for Cheney.

Both are wrong. The fundamental problem is that Hollywood’s narrative needs and political leanings often conflict with reality. Hollywood needs a straightforward story line. Washington is more complicated. The usual explanation for bad outcomes inside the Beltway is not evil or corruption but incompetence or poor judgment. And there are rarely heroes.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

And that gets us to the heart of my objections. Mad Men is a show written by young people about an era they never knew, and their attitude seems to include a large element of mockery and derision. In almost every scene, I can hear some smug twentysomething or thirtysomething scriptwriter whispering, "Look at these idiots. They didn't know smoking was bad for you. They didn't know liquor can cause health problems. They didn't think women had minds of their own. They didn't know there were gay people in the world. They were so stupid!"

Followed by: "See how much smarter, more worldly-wise, and enlightened we are?"

Sunday, November 07, 2010

They all predicted that the GOP was headed towards extinction unless it embraced a more moderate agenda. For the most part the opposite happened, and the result is an electoral “bloodbath” the likes of which none of us has ever seen in our lifetime – just not the one anticipated by Frum and his ilk.

Friday, November 05, 2010

And let’s remember that many of O’Donnell’s problems had nothing to do with her political beliefs, and had everything to do with her personal shortcomings. The fact is years ago O’Donnell decided she wanted to be a celebrity conservative. So she went on MTV and on Bill Maher, and behaved in ways that drew attention to herself. And a lot of what she did came back to bite her in the hindquarters. Not to mention her resume problems, consisting of 1) not very much political or practical experience, and 2) she lied at least once (that we know of) about her resume. Eventually her reputation for flakiness got so bad that when she correctly stated something about the constitution, half the world laughed at her before the truth got its boots on.

This is what Cromwell said to the Long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go"

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"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." --Samuel Adams